Chapter 14 #2
“I’ve been avoiding him,” she admitted finally. “Jasper, I mean. I know I’m using the wedding as an excuse to stay busy. Running around to fittings and meetings and photo locations.”
“You don’t want to spend time with him?”
“It’s not that.” She turned slightly to face me, her shoulder leaning against the couch as she finally looked at me.
“I want to give him and Mom time alone. She deserves to be happy, you know? All these years she’s been alone, working so many shifts at the hospital that sometimes it felt like I never saw her for days.
She made sure I never went without even when money was tight.
She made her entire life about making sure I had whatever I needed.
This could be her chance to finally have something for herself. ”
Something in my chest tightened. “So you’re staying out of the way.”
“I’m giving them space. Giving them a chance to... I don’t know. Figure out if there’s still something there after all this time.” She shrugged, trying to look casual, but I could see the vulnerability underneath. “Besides, I’m better at being on the periphery anyway. Easier that way.”
“Leigh…”
“It’s fine, Dex. Really. Mom seems lighter somehow. Happier. That’s what matters.” She picked up her coffee. “And it’s not like I’m lonely or anything. I’ve got the wedding planning. And you.”
The way she said “and you”, casual but loaded, made my heart do that stupid thing again.
I wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to hold back, that she could have this whole other side of her family too if she wanted.
But I knew that she wasn’t ready to hear it.
Leigh was slowly learning how to be part of the family in the way she knew how, standing on the edge and watching, learning.
Maybe it was a defense mechanism, maybe it was just habit by this point, but if this was what she needed to process this huge change in her life, then I’d do whatever I could to help her.
So, instead, I told her about moving to Willowbrook in fifth grade, about how the brothers had adopted me into their group without question. About how their grandfather had always included me in things even though I wasn’t his kid, and how that had meant everything to a kid who’d just lost his dad.
“You and I are the same,” she said quietly. “Always on the outside looking in. Always grateful to be included but never quite sure if we really belong.”
“Maybe that’s why this feels right. Because we understand each other.”
“Maybe.” She shifted, looking up at me. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Your mom. You said she left when you were little. What happened?”
My hand stilled where it had been playing with her hair. Most people didn’t ask. The brothers knew the basics but had never pushed for details. Even Xander, who knew me better than anyone, had only heard the surface version.
But Leigh was looking at me with those eyes that seemed to see straight through every wall I’d ever built, and I found myself wanting to tell her.
All of it.
“She left when I was four,” I said finally. “Just walked out one day and never came back.”
“Do you remember it? The day she left?”
“Pieces of it. I remember Dad crying, which I’d never seen before.
I remember him trying to explain that Mommy needed to go away for a while.
That she wasn’t happy.” I stared at the ceiling, pulling up memories I usually kept locked away.
“I remember waiting for her to come back despite what he said. Every day I’d sit by the window watching for her car. ”
Leigh’s hand found mine, squeezed.
“She never did come back. Dad eventually told me she wasn’t built for family life. That some people just aren’t meant for it. He said it like it was a fact, like some people are born without the ability to love that way.”
“That’s not true,” Leigh said fiercely. “That’s not how love works.”
“Isn’t it?” I looked at her. “She had a husband and a kid and she walked away from both without looking back. What else would you call that?”
I hated the pain in my voice as I asked. I hated that she was able to ruin a moment as beautiful as getting to know my girlfriend even all these years later.
Girlfriend? Was that what she was? It was definitely what it felt like right now.
“I’d call it her loss. Her failure. Not some inherent inability to love.” She shifted so she was facing me fully. “Dex, what your mom did… that’s on her. Not on you. And it doesn’t mean love is conditional or that people will leave if you’re not perfect.”
“Doesn’t it though? She left. My dad spent the rest of his life waiting for her to change her mind. And I...” I stopped, not sure how to finish that sentence.
“And you what?”
“And I’ve spent my whole life trying to be useful enough that people won’t leave me again.
” The words came out raw, honest. In fact, it was an epiphany I’d never had before.
A part of myself that I’d never really wanted to look at.
“The brothers, the garage, this whole town. I made myself indispensable so that I’d always have a place.
So that I’d never be the one left behind again. ”
My chest ached with the realisation that this was why I’d turned my life into what it was.
Leigh’s eyes were shining. “Is that what you think? That they only keep you around because you’re useful?”
“Sometimes.”
“Dex.” She cupped my face in her hands. “They love you because you’re you. Not because of what you can do for them. Just like I…” She stopped, caught herself. “I wish you could see yourself the way that everyone else does.”
“Just like you what?” I asked, my mind fixing on those three small words and the implication behind them.
She looked away. “Nothing. Just... you need to know you’re more than what you can provide. You’re worth loving just for being yourself.”
I wanted to ask what she’d almost said. Wanted to push. But the moment felt fragile, like if I pressed too hard it might shatter.
“I do the same thing,” she said quietly. “Stay on the outside. Keep myself from getting too close. Because if I’m always the one on the periphery, it doesn’t hurt as much when people move on.”
“Is that what you’re doing with us? Keeping yourself on the periphery?”
“I was trying to. But it’s not working.” She looked back at me, and her eyes were full of something that made my chest ache. “I’m already in too deep, Dex. And that terrifies me.”
“Me too.” I pulled her closer. “But maybe we can be terrified together.”
“That’s not how fear works.”
“Sure it is. Everything’s less scary when you’re not facing it alone.”
She studied my face for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay. Terrified together.”
“And hey,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “At least we have until August to figure this out.”
Something flickered across her face. Pain, maybe, or resignation. “August. Right.”
“Leigh…”
“I don’t want to think about August right now.” She kissed me, soft at first then deeper. “Can we just have today? Please? And then maybe all the days in between?”
She was so cute. I couldn’t help but grin against her lips before I kissed her again.
I knew we were avoiding the conversation. Knew that August was coming whether we wanted to think about it or not.
But when she was kissing me like that, her hands in my hair, her body pressed against mine, I couldn’t bring myself to care about anything except this moment.
“Yeah,” I murmured against her lips. “We can have every single day you want to have.”
We ended up in my bedroom. Not rushed, not desperate, but slow and deliberate. Taking our time to learn each other. To memorize the sounds she made, the places that made her gasp, the way she said my name when I touched her just right.
Afterward, she lay curled against my side, her head on my chest, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my skin. The afternoon sun filtered through the curtains, painting everything in gold, and I felt more content than I had in years.
More content than I maybe ever had.
“This is nice,” she murmured, half-asleep.
“Yeah?”
“Mmm. I could get used to this.”
The words should have scared me. Should have triggered all my usual defenses about getting too comfortable, about people leaving, about nothing good lasting forever.
Instead, they just made me hold her tighter.
“Me too.”
She made a soft, sleepy sound and within minutes her breathing had evened out into sleep.
I lay there, watching her, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing against my side. Afternoon sunlight caught in her hair, shining like copper strands. Her face was peaceful, relaxed, all the worry and stress of the past weeks smoothed away.
She trusted me enough to fall asleep in my arms. To be vulnerable with me. To tell me her fears and let me see the parts of herself she usually kept hidden.
And I felt something shift in my chest. Something that had been locked up tight for years cracking open.
Something that felt dangerously close to those three words I’d promised myself I wouldn’t think about. That I’d told myself it was too soon for, that this was supposed to be temporary and casual and not serious enough for feelings like that.
But lying here with Leigh in my arms, her trust given so freely, her presence in my life becoming as necessary as breathing, I knew I was in trouble.
Deep, serious, no-way-out trouble.
This was supposed to be temporary. Simple. Fun.
But it wasn’t any of those things.
It was becoming everything.
And I had no idea what I was going to do about it when August came and she left to go back to her life in Blue Point Bay.
No idea how I was supposed to just let her go.
No idea how I’d survived this long without her.
She stirred, made a soft sound, burrowed closer to me in her sleep.
I pressed a kiss to her hair and closed my eyes.
August. We’d figure out August when it came.
For now, I had this. I had her. I had today.
And maybe, just maybe, today would be enough.
Even though I was starting to suspect that nothing would ever be enough when it came to Leigh Pierce.
Not a summer. Not a lifetime.
Nothing would ever be enough.